Am I Not Merciful
by Beans
Summary: A short alternate reality scene: after a surprise attack on the Crusade, Van is taken prisoner; and before handing Van over to his superiors Dilandau takes the chance to play out his own personal revenge.


The following is a short scene that popped into my head while I was watching "the scar scene" in episode four. This generally takes place sometime after Dilandau is scarred by Van on the Vione, but other than that corresponds in no way to the events of the rest of the series. In my own little reality: Dilandau and the elite launch a surprise attack on the Crusade and kill all the occupants except Van. Before handing Van over to his superiors, Dilandau takes the chance to play out his own personal revenge.

Before any Van-fanatics read this and immediately launch a barrage of flames to my inbox - (_"How can you do that to Van?!"_ *SEND!* _"Asterisk! Dollar sign! Ampersand! Pound sign! Dollar sign! At sign! Asterisk asterisk! Pound sign! Exclamation point exclamation point!"_ *SEND!*) - I just want to make it clear that the following does not reflect my opinion of Van in any way. I love Van in all of his "glutton for abuse" splendidness, really, I do. 

. . . I just love Dilandau more. ^^ 

Please refrain from hunting me down and beating me to death with a rusty crowbar. 

* * * * *

**-- Am I Not Merciful --**  
_Beans (beans@beans-etc.com)_   
  
  
There was a light. A faint hiss of a gas lamp, then a thrumming pain at the base of his skull. His chin was prodded, forcing his head to loll across his shoulder and he opened his eyes in slits, blinking out the harsh glare of the light.

_. . .FIRE. . ._

_. . .it's so hot. . . _

A shift in the shadows near him raised an instinctive alarm. All of a sudden, his head was thrown back and his cheek blistered as sharp knuckles crashed against the side of his face with a splitting crack. He spat, heaving and holding down an involuntary retch. The blow had practically knocked him to the floor, but instead had left him to merely crumple over, hanging partially off the seat of the chair to which his bound wrists had been tethered to the back rest.

_"Vaaan . . ."_

The voice slunk through the shadows beyond him; a thin, reedy rasp that caught the breath in his throat and pulled his withered gaze upturn as the young man prowled out from the caped darkness of the small room.

_. . .red metal. . ._

_. . .god, the fire. . ._

Garnet eyes glinted in the lamp light and Dilandau cracked his knuckles that had bruised against heavy bone moments before.

_. . .Allen!. . ._

_. . .there's too many. . ._

_. . .hard to port!. . .the rudder's not responding. . ._

_. . .THERE'S NO TIME. . ._

Van grimaced as the eerie dead of the room was broken by the shrill scraping of wooden legs against the concrete floor as the albino slid a chair over across from him. The sound pierced through the crackling and spitting flames that were still licking up in the withered depths of his mind. It made the blood drum through his ears and his head hurt. 

_. . .they're ripping everything apart!. . ._

_. . .the deck is shattering. . ._

_. . .ESCAFLOWNE. . ._

_. . .Hitomi, Merle, get behind me!. . ._

_. . .everything is exploding!. . ._

Dilandau straddled the seat backwards and crossed his arms over the headrest, drawing up Van's gaze with an insidious stare. 

"You're a hard bastard to bring around," The albino's eyes narrowed and an eager, sadistic smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. Strands of silver hair masked a vaunting, appraising gaze. Van grimaced -- the pure, chaste color was so unfitting; deceptive upon a glance in veiling the red stare beneath that smoldered like two hot embers. Flaunting, mirthful, and sick. 

_. . .there's no where to go god there's no where to go. . ._

_. . .god, the fire. . .eating everything. . ._

He flinched as Dilandau drummed his gloved fingers against the rear of the chair. The soft leather sounded like explosions in his ears as they beat along the polished wood frame. He tried to meet the burning stare with a mustered amount of dignity, but his head stung and his shoulders carried a dull ache that made it hard to sit tall. Across from him, Dilandau's keen smile was smooth and wide as he observed Van's effort. 

_. . .the Crusade. . ._

_. . .everyone is screaming. . ._

Van reeled. The flames in the back of his head licked higher, scorching crumbling wood and shattering glass.

_. . .screaming. . ._

_. . .HITOMI!. . ._

Crackling flames sucked the breath dry from his lungs. He felt cold. Van's head fell, his eyes stinging with unshed emotion. "Hitomi . . ."

An tittering, sardonic chuckle replied across from him and Dilandau leaned forward. "That bitch from the Mystic Moon?" He spat out the words as if they were vile on his tongue. "You should thank your maker for her fate -- Emperor Dornkirk had his own plans for her, and far be it to say she would have fared better." Dilandau flipped a wisp of hair from his face absently and leaned his chin thoughtfully on his knuckles. "It was a mercy for them all that I let them die on that damn ship."

A swell rose in the pit of Van's gut and he choked. The almost giddy lilt to the Zaibach captain's voice made his skin crawl and set his blood to boil. He grunted as Dilandau reached out and grabbed a chunk of his hair in one leathered fist, pulling his face forward.

"I was _merciful,_ Van," Dilandau purred insistingly and smiled. He twisted Van's head up painfully. "Was I not merciful?"

Van could only confront the appalling condescension with a disgusted sneer, holding back a wrenching sound of sorrow that threatened to voice the pain within. He refused to give him that. He dared to look away from the penetrating garnet stare and he felt Dilandau's gaze harden, and for a moment the grip tightened on him, digging into his scalp. Then Dilandau snorted and shoved Van back against the chair, a smile still on his face.

"Where have you taken me?" Van demanded hoarsely, attempting to maintain what remained of his fallen dignified pride. This room wasn't like his prison had been on the Vione before. This place felt musty and had a smell stale in his nose. 

Dilandau scoffed and let out a short unpleasant laugh. "That's what I hate about you heroes," he chided silkily, shaking his head. "-- beat you down and you still keep like an uptight little bitch. If you're missing your cozy little abode back on the Vione, be patient. I didn't think there was any rush to deliver you just yet, and we need to take some time to do the minimal repairs your wretched ship cost on two of our Alseides units. This freighter is en route to the Vione for supplies, so we'll just sit tight and let it crawl us slowly the rest of the way back into dock." 

A sly smile broadened his face. "But we have lots of time till then . . ." The captain titled his head and for a split second in the dim lamp elimination, the red eyes glinted deadly feral. ". . . and now that you're awake, we can play a bit."

An unpleasant, heavy chill settled on Van's shoulders. Dilandau's eyes narrowed again and he rose up from his chair, the smile disappearing from the pale face and replaced instead by a drawn, hollow expression, equally as disturbing. Van watched with a sudden cold anxiety as Dilandau raised a hand to his right cheek and stroked the long, smooth scar that marred the skin, looking at Van fixatedly. Staring through him at his insides, as if he wanted to take them out and play with them.

"No Allen Schezar to hide behind this time . . ." The whisper slithered through the shadows, almost singing, filling the tiny room and dripping off the rafters overhead; long, deliberate, and eerily wild. Van froze in his seat as Dilandau slowly closed the distance between them and bent his head down level to Van's face. A strange half-sneer half-smirk twitched at the corners of the captain's mouth.

"No Allen . . . No bitch from the Mystic Moon . . . No _Escaflowne . . ._"

_. . .Escaflowne. . ._

Van blinked, his eyes widening for a second, and as if privy to his terrible realization Dilandau's face curled into a smug sneer. He took Van's chin in his hand and met his eyes, seeming to take intangible joy in confirming his fear. 

"So much for Fanelia's legendary God of Protection," he hissed in a steadily rising pitch. "What's left of your almighty god is scattered over three miles of rotten wasteland. If Folken wants it so bad he can fly down and pick it all up again."

_Brother._

Van cringed as Dilandau ran a finger down the side of his cheek, a sudden desperate and fearful sweat lining his brow as the Dragonslayer pressed increasingly sharp along his golden skin. 

"Folken will kill you if you touch me . . ."

The leather encased fingers curled around the base of Van's lower jaw as if to crush it, and Dilandau let out a high tittering laugh. 

"Bet on it," he grinned madly, twisting Van's head back with his hand. "I wager I'll be flat in a hospital cot for a good day or two after I finally drop the Strategos' little brother at his feet. Lucky for you, I'm willing to sit through that reprimand eventually --" he leaned so close that Van could feel the burning heat of his breath and Dilandau cocked his head "-- but Folken is a ship and a fools worth away."

As if to emphasize proof to this claim, Dilandau pulled away, and then in one swift, fluid arc, he swung his arm around and punched Van square in the jaw. 

Van spat, the assault shuddering through him and rocking the chair he was bound to. He was blinded by a brief pain-filled vertigo. Grunting heavily, he winced, probing the left side of his mouth with his tongue and tasting the warm blood seeping from where Dilandau's swing had broke a tooth. 

As a dull, grinding ache set along his already blistering lower jaw, he felt the leather fingers prod his chin up once more, and he was forced to meet that wretched, appraising red stare again, vicious and wanton and sickly eager. He glimpsed the thin lips curl back in a smirking sneer, and his head was whipped back as Dilandau punched him again. Van felt his nose break under the crash of the fist.

Then again, Dilandau brought his hand back and swung. And again. Several times, Van almost blacked out, only to regain himself just as Dilandau's fist would crack down once more, sometimes against his face and sometimes lower into his gut. Every assault was deliberately measured between one and the next, blessed by a practiced skill of pacing each swing so as to prevent the old blow of dulling him to the new.

Van suffered through the sadistic sport with grounded temperance, yielding to the abuse and betraying his pain with only small, sharp grunts, until after a last swing to the underside of Van's jaw, Dilandau finally drew back. Bruised and swollen, Van doubled forward in the chair, breathing raggedly and tasting the vile bead of blood that seeped from his broken lips. He listened to the soft tread of Dilandau's armored boots as the captain rounded the back of his chair. Without looking up Van could feel the discomforting heavy air of a strange mix of mirth and dissatisfaction. He cringed when Dilandau leaned over his shoulder. 

"Play with me, Van. It's no fun if you don't play along," Dilandau slithered silkily, squeezing Van's shoulder which was already set with a dull ache. "Come on and make some noise for me."

"Fuck you,"

No sooner had he bit out the words than cold steel was thrust up against his neck. Van jerked, grimacing as Dilandau yanked his head back again roughly by his hair, the edge of the captain's drawn sword pressed gingerly at the top of his throat, daring him to so much as breath. Dilandau's mouth brushed his ear from behind.

"Be a good dog, Van," he hissed with malice. "Play nice. After all, angry beasts aren't good for anything." He nudged the blade harder under his chin to illustrate the warning.

Van closed his eyes and held his breath for a long moment until he felt the blade be withdrawn and heard the weapon being slid back into its sheath. When he opened his eyes again, Dilandau was leaning down in front of him. The captain prodded Van's bruised jaw with a thumb, gazing glassily at the beads of blood that came off on his glove and Van winced. He watched chillingly from the under the tops of his eyes as Dilandau reached up and delicately traced his scarred cheek again with the same eerie, hollow look as before. Like a somber, rabid animal. It made Van feel terrifyingly cold, and he repressed a fierce shudder. 

Dilandau's mouth stretched into a thin smirk, then he reached out and gripped the back of Van's chair, and in a long, deliberate movement he pulled himself down to straddle the Fanelian's lap. Van blanched as Dilandau cuddled his waist in close against him and suddenly a horrific new fear cut through his senses. His eyes flew open and he jerked away, arching back into the seat of the chair as far as possible from the intentions of the young captain. There was a short snort and Dilandau cuffed him smartly.

"You have filthy thoughts for a king, Van," he said. "What benefit would it be to me to torture both of us? If there's time maybe I'll let Miguel or Shesta have at you for a bit afterwards, but until then you can stop hugging your knees together like some bitch of a dog."

Van found little comfort in the crude remark and his anxiety hardly waned as Dilandau pulled apart the top neck of his uniform. He watched apprehensively, twitching, as the young man sitting on him reached inside the breast of the armored jacket and withdrew something small between his fingers. Dilandau's arm dropped down to the side of the chair, then there was a sharp flick of his hand and the sound of a splint striking against a wooden slat. Van cringed back as a lighted match was brought in front of his face.

A nervous sweat broke over him at the presence of the flickering splint. The small, golden prick of fire burned a hole in his gaze and sucked the air straight from his lungs, choking him. He listened to it spitting and crackling in the back of his head; tearing up the deck of the Crusade and leaving nothing but charred cinders and ash, and people screaming. 

Van wrung his wrists in their bonds, cuddling back further in the chair and staring at the tiny licking flame like it were burning with the ferocity and menace of a raging wild fire. He felt Dilandau's other hand on him suddenly, pulling his shirt up over his stomach, and the match dropped beneath his sight. Garnet eyes followed the flame, alive with wild, zealous reverence; then they turned upward and met Van's gaze spitefully. 

"Make some noise for me, Van. Go ahead. Yell your god damn head off."

There was sudden excruciating pain that ripped through the middle of his chest as the burning flame was driven into his flesh. Van bucked violently in his seat, restrained by Dilandau's weight resting on his lap. His face contorted and he twisted in the chair, fighting to hold back until finally this new pain drove home and an anguished, pained exclamation tore through his throat.

At his outburst, there was a short chuckle from his tormentor and the smothered match was pulled away and discarded on the floor. The immediate searing pain dulled to a burning ache and Van grit his teeth, leaning back, his throat ravaged with great, shuddering whoops of air. Above him, Dilandau wore a vicious, toothed smile. The Dragonslayer captain moved up over his lap, draping an arm around Van's shoulder and leaned against him in a lazy sort of manner, looking very pleased.

"Good boy," Dilandau slewed with a grin. He took out another match and lit it up. Arching back again, Van watched numbly through heavy, slitted eyes at the tendril of flame as it was danced along his skin, broiling his flesh with its heat. He braced himself and screwed his eyes closed as the second burning splint was dug into the left side of his chest with a malicious ferocity, and he cried out again. Across from him, he heard Dilandau speak up casually over his exclamations, paying absolutely no heed to his pained whimpering.

"When I was a kid, my tutors told me that all men were created the same," Dilandau said thoughtfully, his voice lowering an octave as he withdrew the second snuffed out splint and dropped it to the ground. "They said that in a war a soldier is just a solder, and that the only real difference between one and the other is that one will always be more merciful than the other in the end . . ." 

He paused briefly and struck up another match. The red eyes met Van with steely conviction. "_This_ is the difference between you and me," Dilandau hissed, eliminating his scarred cheek in the light of the tiny flame. "I have the balls to stay and finish the job. _That's_ mercy."

Van tried to look away from Dilandau's smoldering gaze. His chest was overwhelmed with a throbbing ache that shuddered him to the core and ripped with searing pain every time another flaming match tip was pressed against him, driving into him until he'd cry out. There was a faint, acrid smell of burning flesh. His struggles had become jaded and halfhearted, and his eyes teared in the corners as the flaming splints scalded and blackened his skin; eating him alive and leaving behind pinpricks of peeling, red hot brands across his chest as repeated remembrances of its malevolence. 

"-- and I will, Van," Dilandau continued softly overtop the Fanelian's little struggled grunts. "I will show you mercy. Unfortunately for you, I have strict orders from the Empire to bring you back at least moderately alive." He clicked his tongue and Van cried out again as the next match was dug into him. The smoldering splint burned deep for a long, agonizing minute, then its pressure slackened slightly and its wielder leaned his silver head down close, coercing Van to meet the red embers that stared at him inches away. Dilandau's voice was predatorily hushed and slow, almost caressing. 

"The Emperor can prod you, beat you, or fuck you senseless for all I care," Dilandau whispered cooingly, "but Dornkirk has no right to your death -- that's my privilege." 

Van's body trembled and knotted as the stub of the match upon his chest was drawn downward along his skin, smoothly and excruciatingly slowly. It traced a long path of sizzling raw flesh down the middle of his chest to his navel. A choked, ragged sound strangled from the pit of Van's throat.

"So when he's done with whatever he needs you for, I'll slip in, real quiet, and pick up whatever's left of you . . . And we'll both have ourselves a _really good day._"

The long line of burning pain in Van's chest was pulled away and the last match was dropped to the floor. Van gasped, blinking hard, trying to ignore the ravage sting in his chest as Dilandau studied his work. He felt the albino's hand press gently against his skin, and then he jerked sharply when Dilandau's touch suddenly became grinding and the leather fingers dug callously into the peeling, red marked flesh. Van grit his teeth, but when he refrained from crying out Dilandau pulled back and slapped him hard enough that the room spun. The Dragonslayer captain snatched Van's jaw in his hand and thrust his head back until the Fanelian's neck strained, his eyes flashing a slow brewing seethe at Van's defiance. 

"The biggest regret in this world is that you can only kill a man once," he hissed down at him through his teeth. Then he blinked, pausing for a moment in an almost contemplating visage. "But then . . . Can you die, Van?" He cocked his head, his voice a low murmur but his eyes completely wild and rapt with excitement. "I've seen your brother's records. The Fanel name is _leeched_ with stinking Draconian blood -- the 'demons of legend' and all that crap . . . They used to tell me that demons don't die; that all you can do is carve them out and watch them squirm." 

Van blinked, breathing heavily. His chest burned. He squirmed anxiously as Dilandau reached his hand down by his knee and slid a small, three inch blade from the inside wall of his left boot. It was barely a razor, but was enough to make Van's blood run cold and his breathing jump from struggled gasps to deep, ragged chokes of air that tore through his lungs. The mere sight of the tiny blade made him feel like he was being sliced through, even without it touching him. 

Dilandau shifted, hunkering down close on Van's lap, and the tip of his tongue darted out and moistened his lips hungrily. He looked almost giddy. Van flinched at the touch of the cold metal as Dilandau maneuvered it delicately along his shoulder and down the back of his arm, barely grazing the skin. He couldn't fight and it hurt too much to put up a effort to struggle. Everything down to the core of him was bruised and sore, and now the brush strokes of the knife were flaying the nerves along his skin. With the hint of a toothed smile, Dilandau played the razor tip along the crook of Van's arm. 

"What's a Draconian look like under the skin?" he slithered treacherously with gleaming eyes. "I want to see the demon. I want to hang its pretty little wings on my wall."

Van stiffened as Dilandau reached his arms around him. He felt the albino's hands stroke the curve of his shoulder blades and trail the switchblade down the small of his back, near the seat of the chair, next to his bound wrists.

He didn't even think. It was to painful to think; but in a single split second Van was seized by an explosion of raw adrenaline and unconscious instinct the moment Dilandau's fingers brushed the palm of his hand. Twisting his wrists up against their tether, he caught Dilandau in his groping fingers and wrenched the captain's hand around sharply. His sudden rebut jerked Dilandau off balance, and as the other young man's body jarred down against his shoulder Van caught the razor in his other hand as it was knocked from the albino's fingers. 

There was moment of startled silence, and for a brief second Dilandau stared at him looking genuinely surprised. Van was breathing hard and his heart pounded rapid in his chest. He could feel Dilandau testing his wrist very gently in his clamped fingers, seeming careful and distinctly aware of the stolen blade that was being prodded precariously along the underside of his wrist. 

"Try it. I dare you." Dilandau bit out in the hush of a whisper. His eyes slitted, boring into Van's defying gaze. "There can be a dozen armed men in here faster than you can breath and if I told them that you so much as _touched_ me, they'd kill you without so much as a glance back."

The threat spurred a blunt, affronting flash across the Fanelian's shadowed eyes, and he sneered. Dilandau blinked. Then at the instant Van pressured the razor, the captain started sharply, threw his free arm around suddenly and crashed the butt of his elbow against Van's face with a splitting crack that deafened the room. The blade missed its mark, slicing a harmless breadth in Dilandau's leather sleeve and fraying the tether binding Van's wrists to the back rest before it was sent skittering to the floor beneath the chair.

In an instant the other young man had wrenched his hand away, and between explosions of vertigo Van felt Dilandau rip him from the seat of the chair. He was swung around and broad sided down against the floor so hard he heard his shoulder crack. 

"-- but then there'd be nothing left of you for _me._"

Dilandau flashed Van a sick grin and grabbed him roughly, rolling him over on his back and planting a knee firmly on his scarred chest, pinning him to the floor.

"You don't want me to hand you over to Dornkirk, Van," Dilandau tittered. "Playing with me will feel like a child's fucking dream when Dornkirk gets his chance with you. You'll _cry_ to play with me again." 

Van choked as the albino shifted his weight and pressed the frame of his knee down hard against his windpipe, forcing the base of Van's spine down on the bulk of his tethered hands that were trapped underneath his back. The combined weight splayed his wrists in such an awkward and painful way that he thought they would snap in their bonds under the pressure.

"I'll do whatever I want to you, and in the end you'll _beg_ me to hurt you just a little bit more. To show you mercy."

Van cried softly. He couldn't help it, everything hurt so much and it was hard to even breathe with Dilandau weighing down on his throat. There was a faint metallic sound as the Dragonslayer reached out and slid the discarded blade over the floor and back into his hand. He ran the tip of his thumb down the knife edge gently, cradling it between his fingers like a child with a precious toy.

"The Empire can have you, but when they're through _I_ will be there." He bent his head down and hovered a breath over Van face, staring at him ravenously. "Maybe then I'll let you see that bitch again, and Schezar; maybe even that cesspit, Fanelia. If you're a good dog, Van, maybe I'll let you see it all again . . ."

Van choked. He felt Dilandau's mouth slide right down beside his ear and he gave a horrific shudder. The breath on the side of his face smelled like blood. He could _hear_ Dilandau smile. 

_"Am I not merciful?"_

For a long second, all Van heard was the soft hiss of the lamp. Through unfocused eyes, he watched numbly as captain stared down at him, then Dilandau reached up and trailed a finger the length of his milky cheek, drawing over the smooth pink line of marred flesh in a fleeting brush. There was a glint of metal from the corner of Van's eyes. He didn't even feel the effort to cringe when the finger was drawn down along the side of his own face and golden skin, tracing a path; mapping an intent. 

He didn't know if the gas lamp had burned out or if he closed his eyes. All he felt was a cold tip of steel pressed against his right cheek; and then a pair of smoldering, garnet embers and a thin, reedy voice curled out from the dark. 

"Maybe we're not so different after all . . ." 


End file.
